Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Kurt Vonnegut on what would make him proud

On Sunday, the NPR radio show, Infinite Minds, replayed one of Kurt Vonnegut’s last interviews. Vonnegut, who died a few weeks ago at the age of 80, spoke at length on several topics close to my heart, including global warming, turn of the century Vienna, etc. But he was also asked the following question, about 18 minutes into the interview:

“If you were to build or envision a country that you could consider yourself to be a proud citizen of, what would be three of its basic attributes?

Kurt Vonnegut: “Just one: great public schools with classes of 12 or smaller."